We live in restaurants: The Standard's food writers on what they've missed most – and what they're most looking forward to next

Lockdown has offered proof, if it were needed, that dining out is most definitely a hobby. With no new restaurants to run to or old favourites to hide away in, the capital’s keenest eaters have found themselves listless, all locked down and with nowhere to gram. There’s only so much fumbling with sourdough one can take.

Relief is coming this weekend as restaurants, pubs and bars can begin to cautiously reopen. For them, it’s not a question of simply hauling open the shutters and testing the taps – uncertainty is everywhere, and more closures are coming. But these past months have revealed a certain malleable brilliance from this city’s restaurateurs, and there’s a lot to look forward to.

The only surety is the need for customers. Here, four of the Standard’s writers – those who, under usual circumstances, live their lives tucked in behind tables, menus in hand – share the meals they’ve missed, and those they’re most looking forward to.

'I am most enthusiastic about pastures new; who is going to surprise or comfort us next'

When asked for favourite restaurants – it happens – I usually say I am most enthusiastic about pastures new; who is going to surprise or comfort us next. And how. Lockdown on March 23 stopped me in my reviewing tracks, which was particularly enraging, as I had already researched a couple of places, one particularly enjoyable.

The Clarence Tavern in Stoke Newington re-launched by Rob Webster-Shaw and Jonathan Jones, the guys behind Anchor & Hope and Canton Arms, has in the kitchen Harry Kaufman from Great Queen Street, sadly closed due to intemperate central London rents and rates. Maybe those will ameliorate in future and be a positive Covid-19 outcome. The owners have had “a good war” supplying dishes for takeaway/delivery and also lovable wines. I have a booking at the redoubtable classic, Otto’s, but also a plan to be in early doors at Café Deco from Anna Tobias and the 40 Maltby Street team.

Fay Maschler

'The notion of sitting at a table, served and fed by somebody else, feels impossibly lavish'

I think that, really, it is the relative straightforwardness of restaurants that I am craving most. After three fretful, haphazard months of shifting culinary goalposts – of pasta kits, pizza picnics abbreviated by thunderstorms and, yes, more time spent in the McDonald’s drive-thru than I’d feel comfortable publicly admitting – the notion of sitting at a table, served and fed by someone else, feels at once soothingly quaint and impossibly lavish. And so, there is maybe a feeling of pleasure-forward alfresco simplicity that unites the post-reopening operations I’m most fantasising about.

Which is another way of saying that my mind has been drifting to Forza Wine’s oasis on a Peckham rooftop, and memories of cauliflower friti lightly shawled in a puffed, greaseless batter; I have flashed back to the vibrant, messy crunch of pan con tomate at Parrillan in Coal Drops Yard; and I have also begun plotting an overdue return trip to Smokey Jerky in New Cross for the kind of charred, vividly spiced takeaway chicken that calls for a secluded spot and an ice-cold Supermalt. They will be cover versions of happy dining moments lent added potency by prolonged confinement. But I am also slobbering at the prospect of Brat’s terrace residency at Climpson’s Arch: an innovative, elegant example of meeting the moment. And also, perhaps, a hopeful reminder that our happiest restaurant memories may yet lie ahead of us.

Jimi Famurewa

'My heart broke for restaurants that had barely opened their doors'

I try not to eat until I cannot move, but it’s a tricky fate to dodge at St John. Two meals, two supremely difficult waddles home: the first with my father, the second a boisterous attempt to prove the merits of British food to my American now-fiancé on our first date. Both were utterly joyous – portions of glorious bone marrow (“people usually share”, said the waitress mischievously, as dad and I rubbed our bellies), followed by pies, pig’s head and too much more.

While the decadent simplicity that St John has spent 25 years perfecting warms my heart, it was lockdown’s implications for London’s newest restaurants that broke it. I mourned uneaten meals at Townsend, Wildflower, Chuku’s – for restaurants that had barely opened their doors, and would find it most difficult to do so again. I long to slurp noodles at Supa Ya Ramen, to chow down on schnitzel and latkes at Larry’s. I will return to old favourites, but I hunger to fill up on new ones too.

Ailis Brennan

'I miss the clatter, the clinking glasses, the calls for one more'

I miss the clatter of places, the clinking glass and conspiratorial calls for just one more. Memories of a laughing meal upstairs at the French House followed by Marsala martinis at Bar Termini have brightened some glum and grey lockdown days. So too has hopes of returning to the oyster counter at Daffodil Mulligan’s, or to the Guinea Grill for Sauternes and stilton. Wherever, I love that feeling of catching a neighbouring table’s eye, both of us overhearing something we shouldn’t; I hope lunching gossips will use stage whispers to bridge the metre distancing.

As we head back, big places won’t feel too odd – say Brasserie Zedel, Wild Honey St James, Darby’s, the roomy Cornerstone, or upstairs in Kensington’s Melabes. But smaller spots will benefit from a sheen of exclusivity; I will be queuing for Jackson Boxer’s Orasay – brilliant during this whole thing – and while many expensive, showy spots will close, the innovative openings, especially ones growing their own and sourcing locally, will thrive, and rightly so.

David Ellis